Mosca narrowed her eyes, but nodded. The ragmen lost interest in her and turned their attention to loosing their chains and casting off. Mosca was about to turn away when something on one of the rafts caught her eye.

Among the torn petticoats and bruised linen dangled a sleeve of cream-colored linen. The light was still poor, but Mosca could make out a daisy pattern around the edge, embroidered in blue. She clambered down from the barge to the raft, which was small but laden with a rag heap almost as high as her head. As she crouched, she heard the rubbery patter of Saracen’s webbed feet from inside his box, as if he were dancing sideways in an attempt to keep his balance. She unstrapped the wig box and placed it down beside her.

Mosca pulled at the cream-colored fabric, gingerly at first for fear of toppling the whole rag heap into the water, then more firmly, but still the sleeve resisted. Pushing at the mound with her shoulder, Mosca managed to clear enough of the deck to see that the sleeve was clenched fast in a closed trapdoor set in the deck.

The trapdoor had a ring, and Mosca was able to lift it and pull the whole length of fabric free. Sure enough, it was a woman’s casaque, a practical, short-sleeved, flared jacket meant to be worn over a gown. It was made for a woman of ample dimensions; it had blue woolen embroidery around the collar and cuffs, and in every particular it matched the Cakes’s description of the casaque worn by the “bride” during the macabre ceremony. And there, near the stomach—was that a smudge of mud or gravy, or something quite different? The fabric bore the marks of many boot soles, and it was hard to tell.

Perhaps this was all she needed to clear Clent. Perhaps she did not need to find out why Partridge had been killed, or why this dress was here on the raft . . . or why a rag raft needed a trapdoor.

Mosca lifted the trapdoor and peered down into a darkness punctured only by the occasional gleam of morning light on metal. She leaned as far forward as she dared, and her nose caught something that smelled the way warm metal tastes. The next moment she leaned forward far further than she had intended as the raft lurched into motion, and she showed Goodman Sussuratch the soles of her clogs as she tumbled in through the hatchway.

“Have we struck something?” A voice from above. Mosca was too winded to speak, lost in a blackness where blurred red stars came and went. She could only guess that the trapdoor must have fallen shut behind her.

“Not at this depth. We bumped hips with the Letitia, that’s all.”

“Tare.” The first man’s voice had become lower and more serious, with a dangerous edge to it. “What’s this doing here?”

“What?”